Fatty liver, which shows almost no symptoms, is rising rapidly, especially among younger adults.
Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance(000810) said on the 27th that its analysis of data accumulated on its integrated health information platform found that the number of customers who received indemnity insurance payouts related to fatty liver increased about twofold, from 12,000 in 2015 to 23,000 last year.
By age group, the increase was pronounced among people in their 20s and 30s. The prevalence of fatty liver among people in their 20s rose about 1.5 times over the past 10 years, from 148 per 100,000 people to 216, and among people in their 30s it increased more than 1.2 times, from 355 to 443 over the same period.
Half of fatty liver patients also had metabolic diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, or hyperlipidemia. However, because fatty liver has almost no subjective symptoms, 79.9% of patients discovered the disease incidentally during health checkups, and only 57.7% began actual treatment after diagnosis.
Tracking 11,193 customers diagnosed with fatty liver over 10 years, Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance(000810) found that 4.0% progressed to cirrhosis and 1.5% to liver cancer. In particular, the progression rate to cirrhosis among patients with coexisting diabetes was 5.2%, 1.3 percentage points higher than among patients without chronic disease. As the disease worsened, medical costs also rose sharply. Compared with patients with chronic viral hepatitis, per-capita medical costs were about 3.9 times higher for those with cirrhosis and about 7.3 times higher for those with liver cancer.
A Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance(000810) official said, "Given the recent trend of increasing fatty liver among younger people, early detection through health checkups and weight management is important," adding, "High-risk groups need active management through tests such as liver fibrosis assessments."